From ammachi.org

[Guest guest]

Namah Shivaya

 

A beautiful article today on ammachi.org about how someone in jail

feels Amma's prescense.

 

bala

 

 

 

Love Will Set Us Free - Even From Inside Prison Walls

 

 

On September 6, 2002, I, Themba Kelly, was arrested. The warrant was

not legitimate! However, I now know it was all part of God's plan. I

had been on a road to destruction, and it was that Grace alone that

spared me.

 

I grew up on the west side of Chicago, East Garfield Park, which at

the time was the second poorest neighborhood in the country. Due to

abuse and lack of love in my environment, as well as a lack of love

for myself, it was easy for me to go on an external search for love.

I joined a street gang, and got involved in selling and using drugs.

By the time I was sixteen, I had been shot in the chest. I still live

with a bullet a couple of inches away from my heart.

 

Dealing with the results of my actions (or karma) has been painful,

however, I am engulfed in gratitude because it has brought me closer

to an experience of true Love.

 

At the age of eighteen, I stumbled upon a different way of life, and

I stopped hanging out with gangs. It was when I learned that the

ancient cultures of my ancestors were founded in wisdom and love that

I changed. This knowledge gave me a different perspective about my

own life.

 

I was able to drop my gang ties, but my addiction to drugs still

haunted me. I was a hopeless case with a good heart. Through all of

my chaotic behaviors, some Grace stayed with me in the form of my

good heart although I didn't realize it at the time.

 

In an attempt to save my life, my parents sent me to New York City.

For a period of time, it worked. A wonderful couple adopted me as

their god-child and gave me an opportunity to do research at the

Collective Fellowship and Peace Academy. Eventually, I worked my way

up to become assistant principal, but my addiction still haunted me.

 

One day while skimming through a magazine, I stumbled across an

advertisement, and for the first time in my life, I saw the face of

Mata Amritanandamayi. Amma's gentle smile, along with the fact that

the program was free, attracted my attention. The word 'free' meant a

lot to me because at the time, I was upset with the new age movement

because certain groups charged so much money for what I know in my

heart should be given for free. I knew I was supposed to go and meet

her.

 

When I arrived at the Universalist Temple on Central Park West, NY, I

immediately felt as innocent as a child. Although my ego still was

tainted with small degrees of skepticism, I almost immediately fell

in love with the aura that Amma had created in the air. My intention

was to hang out for a couple of hours and go home. However, I became

so overwhelmed by Amma's beautiful energy that I stayed until sunrise

the next day when she departed.

 

Being with her was heaven on Earth. Time and Space didn't matter, and

my dream had finally come true. My inner longing for Love was

fulfilled in her presence. It was as though she had come all the way

from Heaven and India just to hug a wretch like me.

 

The funny thing was that about a month prior to Amma's coming, I had

an overwhelming desire to hug everyone my heart told me needed a hug.

I had been hugging everyone in sight, from the homeless stranger to

anyone who seemed like they needed a hug. It blew my mind away when I

found out that Amma was called the 'hugging saint.' Remember, this

was happening to this child who had a bullet in his chest next to his

'heart.'

 

I was an ex-thug, ex-criminal, ex-drug addict, ex-homeless man, an

outcast, etc. Yet, Amma didn't care about any of that, She was only

concerned with Her child's well-being. That night was the most

profound night of my life, and I will never forget it.

 

As the evening with Mother continued, I picked up a pamphlet and read

Amma's life story as a child. It connected me to her on a deeper

level when I read that she was abused as a child, like me, and that

her family labeled her an outcast. Amma's family thought She was

crazy, and I felt crazy, or shall I say 'different.'

 

When I read Mother's words, "We are not merely here to experience

bliss, but to aid in suffering humanity," and "I renounced everything

but my children," I was completely stupefied by Her. Those words are

the deepest words that I have experienced.

 

As the program continued, I was so immersed in her Love that I didn't

ever go to receive her hug physically. Instead, I felt her touch in

every person She hugged. This was my first true, non- intellectual,

experiential glimpse of what the scriptures call liberation, which is

full emersion in Love. That night, there was no inner and outer,

there was only Amma and the inexhaustible experience of undying,

eternal Love.

 

Well, that was the Year 2000 for me. Then, a couple of months after

Amma left New York, things began getting rough for me again. Even so,

there was something new deeply ingrained in my heart. When Amma came

back the next year, I brought about ten people with me to receive Her

hug. Everyone who came was also completely filled with her Love.

 

Well anyway, around the middle of the Year 2002, I ended up

strung-out and homeless again, hopeless and heart-broken all over

again. This time I had given up totally. I just wanted to die in the

streets. My ego made me think that I had let down the whole world,

and that I would be better off alone and dead to all of my loved

ones. I wasn't even "Themba" anymore, for my name "Themba" means

hope, and I had lost all of it.

 

It was during this period that I was caught in a petty case, and then

released. I had a court date scheduled for September, but the

District Attorney changed it to August without my knowing. It was

then that I was arrested on the non-legitimate warrant and sent to

prison.

 

I didn't realize it at the time, but it saved my life. I had been

saved from myself. After three weeks of being incarcerated, I went to

the prison yard by myself one day. The sun was shining brightly, and

I began singing a song that I had written to Amma. The tears poured

out in gratitude as I cried the words, "After all of my crap,

somebody still loved me, came all the way from Heaven just to hug me,

amazing grace, a wretch like me could be loved so much … it just

can't be." I cried like a baby. I just couldn't believe that the Love

I felt in Amma's presence still was with me. I mean that presence of

Love was stronger in my heart than it had ever been, and I was in

prison! After that, I was free. I had been graced with the ability to

totally forgive myself. Those tears of Love gave me complete

contentment.

 

After that, I told more than seventy inmates about the fullness of

Love I found in her presence, and I taught meditation to more than

twenty of them.

 

My father sent me a book about a woman's experiences with Amma, "Path

of the Mother," which gave me the address of the California Ashram. I

wrote a letter to the ashram, and Dayamrita Chaitanya (one of Amma's

disciples), wrote me back and encouraged me to keep up the good work.

He also sent me more books and pictures of Mother.

 

I read and passed around the books, and immediately displayed the

photos on my locker and bed area. Now, Amma's beautiful smile is

smiling at fifty inmates.

 

Once I was inspired to create a Thanksgiving dinner for the inmates

as a service to those around me. Afterwards, one of the correctional

officers told me that they had never seen anything like that in

prison, and a few inmates told me that for that day, they felt like

they were not in jail. Some inmates wrote statements about how they

felt that day, and I hope to publish them one day.

 

Brother Dayamrita Chaitanya has been so helpful and loving to me. His

accepting spirit has helped me to feel even closer to Amma. He also

has given messages to Mother for me, even though I have always felt

that her Love is with me at all times. One time while I was writing a

letter to Amma, a brother who had no knowledge of chanting or

anything other than seeing Mother's picture on my locker, all of a

sudden began chanting Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma. When Mother hugged

me in 2002, this is what She chanted in my ear. When I asked the

brother why he said "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma," he said he didn't

know, and that it just came to him. Experiences such as these have

occurred here very frequently.

 

I still don't understand why Amma continues to love me. She taught me

to love myself, so now I don't question Her Love or Will, I just

accept it.

 

To my best ability, these were actual accounts of our experiences

here in jail with 'The Mother of Immortal Bliss'. I pray and hope

with all sincerity that my experience with Amma can inspire one of my

brothers or sisters to be open to Love. If Amma's love can reach me

even when I am incarcerated, she can reach you in your pain and

suffering. I only have one question to ask Amma, "Amma, how can your

son be of better service to Universal Love?" No other question

remains unanswered.

 

To all my brothers and sisters, I love you.

 

- Themba Kelly (written from NY prison)

March 2, 2003.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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